Conventional gas-fired barbecues typically include a housing within which a horizontal array of heat-retaining briquettes or lava rocks or other radiants are mounted over one or more gas burners. A grill rack located horizontally within the housing positions meat or other food over the radiants, which radiate cooking heat thereto. This type of cooking generates a lot of grease and associated unwanted smoke and flame as the grease lands on the hot radiants. This is controllable by controlling the heat, and is not a great problem with quick cooling food. Also, many people desire the effect on the food caused by the flame.
Some conventional barbecue units further include an apparatus for rotating meat on a spit over the grill rack. Unfortunately, the drippings from such a rotisserie arrangement fall onto the heated radiants and cause smoking or flame. This is particularly troublesome with an item requiring cooking for a long period of time, such as chicken or turkey. Although drip pans and other shields have been employed to intercept falling grease, insertion of such devices between the radiants and the food spit can hinder the optimum cooking of the food.
Various vertically mounted fire boxes of specialized construction are found in the prior art for cooking spit-mounted meat from the side. One such arrangement includes a vertical upstanding panel of radiant material mounted over a tubular gas burner, which is detachably mounted within a cooking enclosure to the side of the rotisserie spit. Additionally, a horizontal array of radiants and a burner may be employed below a basting tray under the spit. Disadvantageously, the vertical panel of radiant material must be separately bought and installed to an existing gas barbecue or must be featured in a new grill, the cost of which is increased accordingly.
There is presently a need for a relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use barbecue that can handle both grill cooking and rotisserie cooking with a reduction in grease-generated flame.